


Bewildered, Bothered, and Bewitched

by annabeth_at_the_helm



Series: Homophobic Trapper [1]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: 1950s, Adultery, Cheating, Explicit Sexual Content, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Heavy Angst, Homophobic Language, Homophobic Slurs, Internalized Homophobia, Korean War, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Trapper is so deeply closeted he hates gay people, Trapper is violent, but Hawkeye sort of shows him the error of his ways, he has to do an Epic Grovel, homophobic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-10 21:59:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17434268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabeth_at_the_helm/pseuds/annabeth_at_the_helm
Summary: Trapper walks in on something he shouldn't, and reactsvery badly. Can he come to grips with himself in the aftermath?





	Bewildered, Bothered, and Bewitched

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shadesofhades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesofhades/gifts).



> I know Trapper seems like such an asshole here, and I don't know if his Epic Grovel is enough to redeem him, but I really wanted to explore the idea that Trapper has been burying his own homosexuality so deep that when faced with someone else's out in the open, he reacts with slurs and violence.
> 
> Please forgive me the indulgence.

"It's not what it looks like," Hawkeye says, "unless it looks like I mistook this enlisted man for a nurse, in which case, it's exactly what it looks like, and it's too bad I didn't notice until his stubble was abrading my skin." Hawkeye's stupid sense of humor! Any other time, Trapper would have laughed and cracked a matching joke, but this—fuck, this is something else.

His stupid humor to cover the fact that Trapper caught him kissing… a _guy_ , of all people. His stomach twists and he can't force down the disgust.

"I'd think there's a coupla things missin', Hawkeye, and an extra thing between his legs that ya were bound to notice. It's not fuckin' _Klinger_ , Hawkeye, where he's wearin' a dress!" Trapper's voice rises and he knows how angry he must sound—but what the _fuck_? "What the _fuck_? Ya think you know someone…" he trails off. He whirls and almost runs from the supply tent, trying to block out the images, the soft, becoming flush on Hawkeye's cheeks, the way his Hawaiian shirt had been half sliding down one shoulder. Never mind the number of times he's seen Hawkeye naked—this different, this _debauchery_.

_No, no, no!_ he practically screams at himself, in his head, deep down. _No,_ he won't think about that! He's not—he can't—it's not _right_.

He throws open the post-op door and almost runs down Margie Cutler, her face suddenly suffused in a soft flush of surprise—his brain pastes an image of Hawkeye over that and Trapper's gorge lurches—and he grabs her shoulders to keep them both from toppling over.

"Sorry!" he gasps, and she gives him a wavering smile.

"You alright, McIntyre?" she asks in her slightly husky, sweet voice. And another voice whispers in his ear, low and throaty and masculine and Trapper almost punches something. He can feel his chest heaving, his breath caught in his lungs, his pulse racing much too fast.

He won't let himself think about _why_.

"When do ya get off?" he asks her urgently, and Margie takes his wrist, turns it to look at his watch.

"In about an hour," she says, and, tugging his wrist, draws him behind a curtain. She kisses him, and Trapper feels something tight inside him, like a knotted muscle, ease all at once, and he can breathe again. He won't think about the fact that she's too… _soft_... or that her face is rounded and feminine. He won't think about—no.

He kisses her a moment longer, caressing the side of her face, all silky, smooth skin, and then pulls back.

"I'll meet ya in the motor pool when ya get off," he murmurs against her ear, and she shivers.

"I'm gonna hold you to that, McIntyre," she says. Someone in post-op groans, and Frank, in his weaselly voice, yells,

"Cutler, where are you? Blowing off your shift? This man needs a nurse!"

"I gotta go," she says, and the curtain flutters and she's gone. Trapper, for lack of anything better to do, goes back to the Swamp.

He's made some pretty decent headway into the contents of the still by the time the door bangs open and closed to admit Hawkeye.

Hawkeye looks like maybe he's had more to drink than necessary, too, and he leans casually against the side of the door, examining Trapper as if he doesn't know him anymore.

Well, fucking good, because Trapper doesn't know _him_ anymore.

"That's pretty fuckin' sick, Hawk," Trapper says flatly. And some part of him twists and turns like a flag in the breeze, but he bites down, clenching his teeth, and glares at his former best friend.

"Oh, I don't know," Hawkeye says, the words tripping off his tongue, "the only sickness _I've_ got is a queer feeling in my groin, you know…"

"How can ya be so goddamn casual about this? This ain't just messin' around with some nurse. It's… it's a _fuckin'_ crime, is what it is, and a disgustin' one at that!" Trapper can hear the censure in his tone, and he knows that Hawkeye hasn't picked up on the underlying truth yet: that Trapper can't be friends with someone like… like… like _that_.

"Is that what you think, Trap?" Hawkeye doesn't sound quite so blase anymore. "You think I'm disgusting? Funny, I didn't have _you_ pegged as a rat-faced weasel."

Trapper flinches and, more than a little—more than a _lot_ , actually—drunk, manages to jump to his feet. He's still glaring, and Hawkeye doesn't even look concerned.

"And what if I tell Henry, huh? Ya gonna be alright with that? If'n I tell him I can't room with no fuckin' _fag_?"

Now Hawkeye looks angry. He takes one step forward, stops, and shakes his head.

"You're drunk," he says, "I'm a doctor, I know these things. My diagnosis is that you won't even remember what you saw."

"Why don' ya just try bein' honest, you fag? Tell me the truth! I wanna know… know the truth." Trapper's body is vibrating beyond his control now, a combination of drink and desire and disgust; a fucked up cocktail of self-loathing and fury at the man he'd _trusted_.

"What is wrong with you?" Hawkeye asks, voice low but impassioned. "I never took you for a bigot. A card-carrying pervert with a permanent membership to the adultery country club, but not—not _this_."

Trapper stands there, fists clenched, and he can't even fucking look at Hawkeye anymore, so he turns his head and watches the still drip, drop by drop, and it reminds him—it reminds him of being a teenager, and watching precome drip down his cock when he masturbated. How fascinating he found that sight. Now the thought of it makes him want to throw up, just like the man in front of him does.

"Nothing to say for yourself? Just one more name on the bigotry register? I thought we were _friends_ , Trap."

"Friends don't… if ya had wanted to stay my friend, ya wouldn' have been a ragin' queer," Trapper says, voice tight and controlled, the better to keep a leash on the wild anger that wants to break free.

"Not the sort of thing you can help," Hawkeye says gently. "I've always found men to be an intriguing sex. It's different, you understand, all that testosterone and barely constrained violence, but…" he pauses a moment. "And the musculature is different under your hands." There's something in Hawkeye's tone, now, something Trapper can't stand, something that makes his fingernails itch and his body twitch like it can somehow escape.

He risks a glance at Hawkeye, and there's—

"Oh, _fuck_ no," Trapper cries, barely keeping it to a dull roar. He doesn't even know when he moved—just that his knuckles are suddenly spitting pain and Hawkeye's crashed onto the floor, between his bunk and the wall, a hand to his bleeding mouth.

"Trap?" Hawk asks, his voice very small, not like his usual bravado at all. "Look, Trap, I'm sorry—"

"I don' want your apologies," Trapper says, sucking on his knuckles. "I don' want anythin' from ya, especially… especially _that._ "

He's gone before Hawkeye can respond, using his football legs to run through the compound, loping past everything till he's on the verge of the minefield, where he comes to a gasping, rasping stop, clutching the stitch in his side and forgetting all about Margie Cutler.

No, his body, so well-trained by now, is a mess of hot and cold, lust and lightning shooting through him, as he tries not to think about what he's done.

++

"Uh, sirs?" Radar's voice is quiet and hesitant, like it almost always is, and Trapper jerks awake like he's been scorched by a mortar shell or something; he's in the Swamp, thoroughly hungover, and he can't remember how he got back into his cot.

"Not tonight, Radar, I've got a headache," Hawkeye mumbles, but loudly and clearly enough for Trapper to hear him and shudder like he's just seen a rat. Radar laughs nervously and says,

"No, sir, that's not—I mean—there's wounded coming. Choppers, ten minutes out. Ambulances, too. You need to get up now, Captain, sir."

"Lemme get my pants," Trapper says, but moving jostles his head. He groans and Radar comes closer, a misty shadow in the predawn gleam.

"Trapper? Sir? Are you fit to do surgery, sir?" Radar is obviously quick when it comes to noticing Trapper's pasty skin and clammy, sweaty face. He knows what he must look like, because he knows what he _feels_ like.

"If ya could get me some coffee, Radar, and quick, I outta be alright in about… well, some minutes, but should be in time."

Hawkeye, by this point, is out of his cot, his black hair tousled over his eyes, his olive drab underwear hiding nothi—

Trapper's stomach flips over sickeningly, realizing that Hawkeye has a morning hard on. On the heels of that thought, he thinks again of what he saw last night, and it makes him want to puke all over again: what if Hawkeye was dreaming about _men_? It wouldn't be that strange, for a queer; Trapper himself has had the occasional dream, but—no! He forces that thought back, away, where it can't hurt him, and moves to put his own pants on, hardly even aware that Radar's left the Swamp, probably to get his coffee.

"It's not contagious," Hawkeye says. "I have a medical degree to prove it!" He swans over to Trapper's side of the Swamp, decently covered, but with a slight bulge where he's tucked his hard on behind his army pants.

"I have a medical degree too," Trapper retorts, "and it's a disease, which means other people can catch it. That's the definition of contagious, ya know."

"Oh, Trap," Hawkeye says, combing his hair out of his eyes, sweeping it to the side part he favors and looks so good on him, "how little you really know. If you want, good ol' doctor Hawkeye will show—"

"Like fuck you will," Trapper says savagely. "Don' even fuckin' come near me. You're already too close."

"Well, it isn't what I _meant_ , but—" Hawkeye moves away, and Trapper's skin suddenly doesn't feel quite too tight. Before it felt like it was stretched over his bones fit to snap.

And then Radar is there with his coffee and he's gulping it down as they speed across the compound to the OR. Trapper can hear the choppers coming, so he wheels off to prepare to do triage, Margaret emerging from her tent more slowly, and when Trapper glances to and fro, he notices no sign of Frank and realizes that Frank wasn't there when Radar came to wake him up.

What if Frank knows? What if he overheard something, and figured out that Hawkeye's a queer? He might be avoiding him—them! He might even think Trapper's painted with the same brush because they've been so close—and that thought chills him. He was so _close_ to Hawkeye. Anything people gossip about Hawkeye Pierce is something they might, then, reasonably apply to Trapper, thinking that birds of a feather flock together—or in this case, fairies. The coffee burns at the back of his throat.

Henry is just striding by, but he stops when he sees Trapper, who's crouched by a bloody head wound, swallowing and swallowing around bile.

"McIntyre?" he asks, leaning in to look at him. "You look terrible."

"Too much of that sweet, sweet sauce from the still," Hawkeye interjects cheerfully. Trapper wants to either punch the dirt or throttle him; he settles for smacking his palm on his thigh, fiercely—his palm stings and so does his thigh. How could Hawkeye be so chipper when he's had as much to drink as Trapper?

"I'll be fine, Henry," he says gruffly, but Henry shakes his head.

"You know you can't operate like that," he says. "Go get some more sack time, and be back for the second wave that's surely coming. Frank and Hawkeye can handle things, and if not, I'll send Radar to get ya."

"But, Henry—" Trapper tries, but Henry just gives him a wide-eyed, blue look, and he sighs, stumbling unsteadily to his feet.

Hawkeye puts out a hand, almost like he's going to say something, or offer Trapper some kind of advice, but when Trapper involuntarily cringes away, he stops, face falling. That beautiful face—seeing the pain on it squeezes something inside Trapper into a vise, but he can't—no, he _can't_.

He can hear the wild raucous sound of triage as he walks away with his head down, people calling out, shouting, nurses running towards them, their shoes smacking into the dirt, and Trapper's lost in a haze of his own misery, but whether it's because he's so hungover he might as well still be drunk or because he just lost his best friend, he can't tell.

His feet bring him to the latrine, and giving into the inevitable, he pushes inside and lets his stomach empty itself, the sharp, acrid scent of the latrine filling his nostrils.

++

Hawkeye's singing in the shower as Trapper walks past the next day. He's been avoiding Hawkeye as much as possible, due in large part to the fact that he feels sick every time he looks at him, because now he _knows_ : knows that Hawkeye is a disgusting fag, who looks at other men, who _kisses_ them, even.

Sometimes, too, when he looks at Hawkeye he sees horrible things in his mind's eye, writhing like snakes: Hawkeye and that enlisted man, doing more than kissing. The shame that bubbles in his belly when he has those thoughts—or the dreams—makes him want to go AWOL, go anywhere to get away from Hawkeye and his perversion.

But it's unmistakably Hawkeye signing, his glorious baritone, his flamboyant showtunes—once it would have made Trapper laugh. Now it just makes him curl into himself more as he tries to get by the showers as fast as he can on the way to the mess tent.

Once, he would have been in the second shower over from Hawkeye, feeling safe, invincible even, in the knowledge that his nakedness was nothing special, because they were both guys. But not anymore. Now he has to sneak showers in when Hawkeye's sleeping, because he doesn't trust him not to try to peek, like Radar does in the women's showers.

He can't eat with Hawkeye across from him anymore, either; it puts him off his feed. So now it's halfway between breakfast and lunch and his food is going to be cold and congealed—even more than usual—because Hawkeye was in the mess tent earlier, when he wanted breakfast. Now he'll be lucky if even the coffee is still a liquid. That, and he hopes the bacon isn't a liquid too. It won't do much for his stomach _or_ his digestion.

But when he enters the mess tent, he sees the enlisted man that Hawkeye was kissing. It had been dark, and Trapper had been in shadow, so he doesn't think the private saw him, but he got enough of a look at his face to remember it. Suddenly ill, he backs out of the mess tent and turns, but now he has to walk past the showers again.

Hawkeye is still singing. Trapper's hungry, now, starving even, and fucking furious. He stomps over to the shower tent and plunges inside, sending the door thwacking hard against the canvas side. Hawkeye is wearing suds up to his neck, one arm raised gracefully, and he is frozen, staring at Trapper.

"Come to watch, see what you're missing?" he asks blithely, and Trapper slams the door closed again.

"You fuckin' fag!" he finds himself screaming, drowned out by the shower enough, possibly, to keep from sending Hawkeye home with a blue discharge. "Ya ruined everythin'!" Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a small child is crying from bruises and abrasions; and someplace deep under the crust that makes Trapper Trapper is something ugly. Something disgusting. And because he can't punch _himself_ in the face, he has to settle for the next best thing: he slugs Hawkeye, hard, in the chest, then again, a quick right hook to the jaw, then, before he can draw back a third time, there's a hand yanking his fist back and away.

"What are you doing, McIntyre?" Henry's asking, his tone soothing. "What has Hawkeye done?"

"He's drunk," Hawkeye offers, "and he caught me kissing Nurse Cutler in the supply tent the other day. I think he's a bit miffed about it, honestly, judging from the black eye I'm going to have."

The shower isn't running anymore, and the virulent red haze that had come down over his eyes has lifted. There's almost—what, remorse? maybe—in his chest as he takes in Hawkeye, whose eye is swollen, the conjunctiva bloody with burst vessels; his chest is already bruising to a colorful blue, green, and black.

"Yeah," Trapper says, realizing how heavily he's breathing. Is it all from that rage? He can't quite tell—"yeah, I'm sorry, Hawk. Sorry, Henry. I'm not really sure what I'm doin' right now."

"I'll just get my robe," Hawkeye says, stepping out of the shower and brushing past Trapper, who recoils as much as he can, "and we can kiss and make up, right, Trap?"

"Not on your life," Trapper says with true venom, wishing he'd punched him at least one more time. "Henry, I can't bunk with Captain Pierce anymore. He's a disturbance."

"What's this now?" Henry asks, giving them both an eye. "You two have been as thick as thieves and the absolute bane of this outfit since Pierce got here. Why the sudden break up?"

All of the romance words are making Trapper anxious, but from the tiny, half-smile on Hawkeye's face, he isn't bothered at all. And the swelling around his blue eye is positively rakish.

"Can't explain it to ya, Henry, ya just gotta understand, I can't be aroun' him anymore'n necessary."

"Well, there you've got me, but I'm sorry too, McIntyre, because it's not like there's anywhere else to put Pierce. So you'll just have to keep rubbing along together for now."

Hawkeye's secretive little grin in Trapper's direction makes him nauseous. Especially when, as they three leave the tent, Hawkeye crosses the compound to the Swamp with his bony, narrow hips swaying just a little more than necessary—and he's gotta know Trapper will notice, because Trapper's been here, with Hawkeye, in this hellhole for months now.

The extra swing in his step isn't lost on Trapper, but it's sickening just the same; he feels his innards heave a bit as he follows. But when he enters the Swamp, Hawkeye is pulling on his army issue t-shirt, pants in place, and then he flops onto his cot with a nudist magazine and begins to hum more showtunes. It's as if he's oblivious—and Trapper has a horrifying thought: what if there _was_ no extra sway? What if Trapper's own _mind_ put it there, simply because of what he knows about Hawkeye now?

The thought is chilling, and when the PA announcer tells them there will be wounded by tonight, he settles down to catch what rest he can, yanking his lumpy pillow over his head and trying desperately to drown out visuals of Hawkeye kissing naked men.

His brain, it seems, doesn't care about his sanity _or_ the fact that the nudes in the magazine were all women.

And when he sleeps, it's an uneasy truce between mind and body, his dreams thankless—but unremembered by the time Radar comes to wake them up.

++

They spend fourteen hours in surgery, and Henry allows him to work at a table with Frank instead of Hawkeye, which calms him somewhat—thankfully, because as agitated as he's been, working across from that familiar lanky form might have distracted him too much from doing a good job.

Frank and Trapper get one chest wound that's weeping blood copiously; as the 4077th's first thoracic surgeon before Hawkeye, Trapper figures he can handle it without having to consult Hawkeye—but when the soldier's heart stops mid-meatball surgery, it's Hawkeye who muscles Frank out of the way to try and massage the heart. He's lucky; the pulse skitters and races but comes back, and then steadies.

"Go your back, Trap," Hawkeye says, "even if your front hates me these days." Then he goes back to his own table. Trapper's hands remain solid as a rock, but inside, he's shaking. He can't stop thinking about it—what he saw. He just can't stop, and it's terrifying.

Later, with Margie Cutler all dolled up in his arms, the two of them down the lane and lying in the grass under the sun—all that time in surgery, and all Trapper could think about was her—and he's kissing her, but he's not really _with_ her.

His mind is on what Hawkeye said to him in the OR. _I've got your back, Trap._ Does that mean just what it sounds like? Or something more—this is Hawkeye, the man for whom double entendre was invented. And if he had Trapper's back—his mind recoils from images of Hawkeye pushing him down. Hawkeye ignoring his protests. Hawkeye stabbing into him with all the pain, anguish, and shame that would entail.

Suddenly kissing Margie under the bright sunshine doesn't seem as much fun as it did five minutes ago. Even worse, though she's been slowly sliding her hand up and down his chest, under his khaki t-shirt, with every pass, her hand goes a little lower—and even though he's kissing her as passionately as he knows how—and he knows plenty—when her hand covers Big John in his lap, she stops.

Trapper stops too.

"Hey," she says, pulling back from his kiss. "Hey, it's alright. I know you're exhausted. Could happen to anyone."

Trapper's not hard. He's not even half-hard—he's totally soft, like a limp piece of bacon from the mess tent. He's also humiliated, but he can't let her see that, can he? He wraps an arm around her back and tugs her onto his lap, hoping that friction from her ass while get his motor running.

Funny how before this it never seemed to stop—and now it feels like the tank is running on empty, and he doesn't know what to do to refuel.

"Nah," he says, kissing the corners of her lips, alongside her tender jaw. "I'm not that tired. Stick with me, honey."

"If you want," she says, but she gazes up into his eyes for a moment. "You know, you're lucky. Don't squander it; Captain Pierce asked me out after surgery too, but I wanted you even though you stood me up the other day."

"Yeah, an' I'm real sorry about that, honey. Somethin' came up. Plus I got so tanked on gin I don' even remember gettin' back to my own bunk. To be real honest, I couldna even be sure if I'd seen ya or not!"

"I don't know if _that's_ reassuring," she says, "but all's well now, right?" She moves in for another full-mouth kiss, her tongue teasing against his, and as she squirms in his lap to get closer, Trapper thinks about how red, how pouty and puffy Hawkeye's lips had looked when he caught him—

"Oh, there you are," Cutler says, and deliberately grinds against the semi Trapper's now sporting. "You wanna take this someplace more private?"

But all Trapper can envision now when he thinks about the supply tent is Hawkeye. Not even how he really looked; no, for some reason he's on his back, his red robe barely covering his waist, but his chest bare. The thought makes Trapper wriggle a little, too, and the movement drives Big John up towards Margie.

"Nah, honey, right here's good. C'mon, lemme just—" and when he gets her fatigues down, and her khaki underwear, he's good and ready.

When he gets the rubber on and pushes into her, she's soft and her inner walls springy against his hardness, and Trapper lets out a moan, imagining that this could have been Hawkeye, here, in this place—his mind wanders. Hawkeye could have been here with him.

Her. With _her_ , Margie. Suddenly Trapper's throat is tight, and he's barely hanging on. He has to do her good, though, get her off, make her happy; his father always taught him that an unselfish lover took care of his lady first, and Trapper's held to that standard his entire life. He's heard sometimes, from the nurses as they chatter around the camp, that Hawkeye isn't always a good lover.

Trapper slides home once more and comes hard; Margie's still panting swiftly and gyrating underneath him when he comes to himself, and he realizes that thinking about Hawkeye during sex threw him off; he didn't satisfy her.

"Jesus, I'm sorry, honey, hang on—" He reaches down, and as he pulls out, he rubs her quick and with fluttering motions till her muscles lock up, then release. She gives a long sigh and her body goes lax beneath his, and Trapper falls to her side, yanking the rubber off and tying it. He already had one pregnancy scare that turned into a marriage; he doesn't know about Hawkeye, but he's always careful now.

As Margie begins to talk quietly next to him, Trapper's mind is up in the clouds: why is he thinking about that homo so much? He can't even stand to be around him anymore; for all he knows Hawkeye doesn't even take the girls all the way. Maybe that's why the nurses gossip: because Hawkeye writes checks he can't cash. If he's queer…

For some reason that makes Trapper's belly somersault, and he closes his eyes.

"We've gotta get back soon, McIntyre," Margie says into his ear. "I can hear Pierce talking on the other side of that hill. He's probably brought some other nurse out here because I turned him down. But I don't wanna be here if he picks the same spot we did."

"Good idea, honey," Trapper says, and bounds to his feet. He helps her up, and they walk down the other way, towards the compound.

But Trapper's mind, at least the part that's been in the gutter since he was fourteen years old, lingers back there, on the other side of the hill, like he can see what Hawkeye's doing.

And what does he expect him to be doing? Hawk isn't stupid—he wouldn't have brought his enlisted pervert into the outdoors.

No—but his perversion is apparently clinging to Trapper's mind like a poisonous weed.

++

"Save it," Margie says, speed walking away from him. Trapper follows, his longer legs allowing him to keep up easily.

"C'mon, honey," Trapper says. "Why ya gotta be so cold? What'd I do?"

"You should know what you did," she says, giving him a dark look; just like his wife, Trapper thinks, expecting him to fucking guess how he fucked up this time. Of his three girls, he really only loves two of them; and Kathy and Becky are the darlings of his life. His wife, he realized long ago, he could do without; he's not likely to tell anyone—besides Hawkeye—that he kept visiting her bed after Becky was born only because he'd discovered how much he loves children, and wanted more.

Thinking about going home—which they all do countless times a day—brings to mind the fact that he didn't want to sleep with her anymore. Not even for another baby, which, before he'd been drafted and sent to Korea, he'd had basically two goals in life: becoming head thoracic surgeon at Boston General, and having another baby.

"You're _married_ , Captain McIntyre," Margie says bitterly. "The cute ones always are, I suppose, but I don't have a hankering to be a homewrecker, so—"

"Damn, how'd ya even find out?" Trapper asks, wondering guiltily if thinking about his wife just now somehow summoned her specter to Korea, where she can haunt him beyond her vaguely disappointed letters by fucking up his chances to cheat.

Maybe the fact that he never really loved her is the reason he cheats, but he's not all that worried about remaining faithful—but shit, it really fucks with his game when the nurses find out he's married. Some of them don't care—some are married themselves—but a lot of them do, and that's unfortunate.

Still. How'd Cutler—

"Did Pierce tell you?" he asks with a dawning dread. What if this is Hawkeye's revenge? Tell her about Loui—his _wife_ —and then, while she's busy stomping all over Trapper's heart, sweep in and snatch her up? Would he do that, now that they're no longer friends?

It's not like, as much as Trapper would like to, that he can _blame_ Hawkeye, after all. Hawkeye, homosexual and apparently unfettered by such things, probably doesn't care about Trapper's words, and he probably doesn't even worry that Trapper will turn him into Henry. Maybe because Henry's so damn hapless?

Though… he did punch Hawkeye more than once. Hawkeye might not seek revenge for words that don't seem to ruffle him—as much as Trapper wishes they did—but he might be angry about getting punched. Hawkeye's flippant and irreverent, but he _is_ capable of flying off the handle; Trapper's seen it. It's an ugly thing to witness, made worse by the fragility of Hawkeye's psyche, because no one is this damned place seems to have noticed that Hawkeye isn't just a fruit: he's a _fruitcake_.

And a few days ago, Trapper loved him for it. He admired him for his persistence in the face of everything trying to beat the delicate sanity out of him; he knew Hawkeye was a little off and he protected him. But not anymore.

Suddenly, Trapper stops walking, realizing he's alone, lost in his thoughts, Nurse Cutler having apparently answered him and then made her escape. Fuck.

But did he tell her? Maybe the only way Trapper is going to find out is to go and confront Hawkeye—a prospect that fills him with revulsion, and also, a question.

Why would Hawkeye want Margie Cutler, when he's a fairy?

The only answer Trapper can come up with is that Hawkeye just wants to hurt Trapper.

_Good_ , a little voice cackles inside him, _you deserve it_.

++

Hawkeye is by himself in the Swamp when Trapper stomps in. He's at the cracked, fogged mirror, shaving, his black hair parted neatly to the side but still damp. He's wearing nothing but his red robe over (hopefully!) underwear, the vee of bare chest still wearing water droplets from his shower, and he's humming cheerfully to himself—obviously preparing for a date.

Trapper lets the door bang loudly closed. Hawkeye doesn't even jump.

"Are you coming to congratulate me, darling?" Hawkeye asks, rinsing the razor in an army helmet filled with water. "I finally get to pick up my prom date and take her to a minefield, ooh, so exciting!"

Trapper pounces on that word, _her_ , and continues stomping over to his own bunk.

"Keep your eyes to yourself," he says gruffly, as he takes down his yellow bathrobe from its nail. He strips his shirt over his head quickly, following it up by shoving his arms into his bathrobe—before he learned that Hawkeye was a fag, he would have got all the way down to his underwear before he put the robe on, but no longer. Just the fact that Hawkeye could have been looking at him and licking his lips all this time makes Trapper want to throw up.

It also makes him feel odd in places he doesn't want to think too hard about.

"Not to worry, Trapper dear, tonight I only have eyes for the beautacious, luminous Nurse Cutler."

Trapper, in the process of lowering his pants, drops them. It gives him a turn, and he shivers suddenly before tying his robe closed and wheeling around to face Hawkeye—who really isn't looking towards him after all. Why does that fill him with something that feels like a cousin to disappointment?

"So ya admit it!" he snarls, "Ya fuckin' went and told her I was married so ya could move in on _my_ territory. That's awfully low; whaddya even want her for? She ain't got a dick you can fondle." He's so angry! And the weird thing is, he doesn't even much care that he _lost_ her, just that Hawkeye—queer, impossible Hawkeye—would have done something so low down and dirty as steal her out from under his nose.

They've had the same girls before, of course; but that was with agreements and metaphorical handshakes. Like being part of the good ol' boys' club, they'd finished with one girl or another and passed her off to the other—but this is different; this is Hawkeye deliberately sabotaging Trapper just to get a girl he doesn't even _want_.

"Firstly," Hawkeye says, the word snapped off like the pin from a grenade, "I like women as well. I bat for both teams—well, I would if I had been any good at baseball. But regardless, even _you_ should be able to get the reference, since you're a jock. And _furthermore_ , I think you'll find that the lovely Nurse Cutler heard it through the grapevine. Not from me."

"Ya can't prove that," Trapper says. "And it don't fuckin' work that way; ya gotta like one or the other, can't like _both_!"

"And why not?" Hawkeye sets down the razor for the last time, towels his face dry, and turns intense blue eyes on Trapper, who suddenly feels like he's in the cross sights of the blue lights of the police. And why is that, he wonders?

That look on Hawkeye's face is profoundly disconcerting; it says he knows things that Trapper doesn't, that maybe Trapper is _just_ a jock, but a dumb jock, at that.

"Well, because—" But here Trapper flounders, trying to find the solid ground of his argument again. But why not? whispers his brain.

"I think female breasts are some of the most beautiful things ever invented," Hawkeye says, "but you'd be surprised how delicious a man's nipples can taste."

"No, I don' wanna know! Keep your nasty, perverted, unnatural thoughts to yourself!" Trapper spits.

"Very well," Hawkeye says. "I perceive at least one princess who never got his rocks off with his football buddies. Shame, that."

Trapper, nearly apoplectic with rage now, can barely get the words out past his clenched teeth: "I'm no fuckin' princess, and ya obviously don' understand anything. How'd ya get a medical degree, anyway, with a brain that fucked up?"

That earns him a blue glare, fierce and paralyzing, and it tells Trapper that Hawkeye both knows his mind is fragile and understands perfectly well that Trapper isn't insulting his sexuality this time, but his carefully unacknowledged mental illness.

It also says Trapper's gone too far.

"Whatever you might choose to believe," Hawkeye says in precise, clipped tones, "I had nothing to do with Cutler's defection from your camp to mine, regardless of whether you view it as turning her coat and going over to the enemy. I'll thank you to keep your thoughts about my brain to yourself, and to be kindly asleep and silent when I get home. Good _night_."

And he flounces—there's no other word for it—out of the Swamp, leaving Trapper alone, feeling slightly cold and more than a tad guilty, and why should he even fucking bother?

++

It might be _their_ still, and so the gin must be just as much Hawkeye's, but Trapper's soul is thirsty and he doesn't have a lot of choices tonight. Drinking a martini that's as dry as a tumbleweed, he's sitting on the edge of his cot, feet planted on the floor, brooding.

It's one thing to be disturbed that Hawkeye likes men and has been sharing his tent all this time; it's another to make thinly veiled insults about his brain—either one could get him sent home, and he supposes that homosexuality is just as much a mental illness, but somehow one seems pitiable and the other abhorrent, and he's not even sure why. Either one could cost Hawkeye his career as a surgeon, but while Trapper's kept mum about one, he's still trying to decide what to do about the other—if he can ever rein in his temper enough to think with a cool head about it.

One drink turns into five, and now Trapper's sprawled on his back, his elbow over his eyes, and his thoughts running fast like water in the OR sinks, pulling his mind down toward the drain, and spinning. He doesn't even know what to think anymore. Somewhere, in the humid night, Hawkeye's fucking the prettiest nurse in camp, and Trapper's alone, having lost out to a man who's just as likely to fuck a pretty orderly.

The fact that Hawkeye's enlisted man had been pretty hasn't really registered until now, and Trapper gulps down another belt of gin. His vision is swimming in and out now, and his hearing is almost… gaudy… and he's feeling unconsciousness slipping him love notes under his locker.

Trapper figures it's gotta be the gin, and the wonderful sense of drunkenness swallowing him up, that makes him bastardize Hawkeye's own high school metaphor.

But, his brain tells him in a sneaky, viscous undertone, _Hawkeye doesn't know the truth. He was only guessing about Peter and that time behind the bleachers, when you compared notes and then whacked off, carefully not looking at one another._

Trapper sighs, feeling tension bleed out of him, and relaxes, eyes closing as he drifts in a gin-soaked haze. And as he does, he wonders what it must be like for Margie, kissing Hawkeye.

Does she like the feel of Hawkeye's dick sliding into her? Does she arch her back and score his back with her nails—would Trapper want to see that? To look at Hawkeye's back, like he's done before; to clean a nurse's claw marks and dress the scratches so they don't become infected?

Now that Trapper's brain is on the subject, it helpfully provides a visual demonstration of Hawkeye's dick, that part of Hawkeye that Trapper's spent all of his time in Korea trying not to notice; what it might look like naked and hard. Hawkeye's kinda small, but those morning woodies have proven he's a grower; Trapper's mouth is drier than his martini, so he swallows some more.

As he drifts the rest of the way off to sleep, gin-soaked tissues giving into exhaustion, he finds himself imagining what it might be like to have Hawkeye beneath him instead of Margie, and his lips curve into a soft, tender smile.

He won't remember any of that when he wakes up.

++

Trapper's cardiac patient dies. It doesn't help his anger any. Somewhere to the left of his explosive feelings, Trapper knows he's being an asshole, that he's never been _this_ person before, but what else can he do?

And yet, despite slinging filthy, awful words at his former best friend, he knows he still hasn't turned Hawkeye in to Henry, but he doesn't understand why. All it would have taken was some testimony on his part, tell Henry what he saw, and Hawkeye would have been exiled stateside, and Trapper would have been free of him and his disgusting influence.

So why didn't he?

And as he sits on his cot, head in his hands, mourning the soldier he couldn't save, he doesn't have any answers for himself.

"Trap?" Hawkeye's voice is soft, but not tentative; no, that fucker would never feel off-guard, would he? He'd never feel like he was on the wrong foot—not how Trapper's felt all this time, since he saw Hawkeye kissing that enlisted man. Hell, it's been five days, and Hawkeye has been his usual irrepressible self. He hasn't shown any worry whatsoever that he'll suddenly find himself on a plane bound for Tokyo.

"Whaddya want?" Trapper says, turning his head to glare angrily into blue eyes that are just as soft as his tone. Why? Why? Why? He doesn't understand! He's been hurtful, he's been mean, he's been _violent_ —why isn't Hawkeye treating _him_ like the pariah that he's been treating Hawkeye as?

"It wasn't your fault," Hawkeye tells him. He sits on the floor by Trapper's bunk—too fucking close—and suddenly his hand, that beautiful hand with the long, delicate surgeon's fingers, is closing around his, and Trapper is feeling overwhelmed by emotion. A lot of it is still anger—he may never be free of it, it feels like—but there's something brittle about his fury. Something that feels like it could be broken if he's not careful.

"Of course it was," Trapper says. "He was my patient; I fucked up. I didn' see that last bit o' shrapnel, and he fuckin' died of fever. I went back in but…"

"It happens to the best of us," Hawkeye tells him, and just like that, his hand is gone, and Trapper doesn't know if he took it away or if Trapper flung it away like something venomous. But it is. Trapper knows that, to get too close to Hawkeye now, would be like injecting poison into his veins. He's—fuck! He worked so _hard_ , spent so goddamn long… he took his beatings, he took his medicine, he fucking _owned_ it and dug a hole so deep for it that it should never have been able to surface…

And now Hawkeye is too close, and Trapper is too weak.

"You're just a fag," Trapper says wearily. "And _you_ did this to me—" and he reaches, reaches—he yanks Hawkeye forward by the edge of his red robe, wraps a hand around his throat, and squeezing a little, hangs him by his fingers, at his mercy, and then their lips are touching.

At first, Trapper wants to hurl him away, even though he knows that he's the one that did it, that crossed the line. He wants to beat Hawkeye bloody and scream obscenities until he's hoarse with it, but his body… oh. His mind is still squirming, all aborted violence, but his mouth, so hard against Hawkeye's at first, so intent on pushing Hawkeye's lips into his teeth until they bled, softens, still firm, but pliant. And Hawkeye, who despite the rapidly fluttering pulse and the hand surrounding his strong white throat, doesn't try to break away—even though he _could_ , and he must know that.

Trapper wouldn't kill him. He hasn't even appreciably constricted Hawkeye's airway.

But, God, _why_. Trapper doesn't know why he's doing anything anymore, just that it's all Hawkeye's fault. The kiss turns then, on a dime, and becomes almost violent; Trapper's tongue all but lunges into Hawkeye's mouth, and when Hawkeye responds with a greedy caress and whimper in the back of his throat, the feel of the sound moving his throat under Trapper's hand, Trapper snaps back to reality.

Fuck! He's kissing his bunkmate—the man he hated up until five minutes ago, before he started hating himself more—and it's midday, the tent flaps open!

He'll never know if Hawkeye would have come to his senses first, if he would have broken the kiss, because Trapper, with the sour taste of gin from Hawkeye's mouth on his lips, lets go and shoves, as hard as he can, against Hawkeye's chest.

Hawkeye goes tumbling, nearly ass over teakettle, and the only reason he doesn't is because there isn't _room_ in the Swamp for it.

"Well, well," Hawkeye says, staring at Trapper. "Seems like the lady doth protest too much."

"It was a—a mistake. And don't forget it!" Trapper's skin itches. His _brain_ itches—he's off his cot and out of the Swamp like a shot, and he can barely hear anything over the roaring in his ears. He kissed Hawkeye! He'd meant to punish Hawkeye, but a kiss wouldn't do that—not to a homo—but something else happened, something he doesn't fucking understand.

As a child, before puberty hit and he filled out, became a football player, before he had the physique he has now—before all that, the kids beat him up on the playground for a fairy. And there was some part of him that refused to fight back.

He's never kissed another man. He's never wanted to—right? But kissing Hawkeye didn't punish _Hawkeye_. It just opened a welter of emotions in Trapper's chest—and woke up his cock.

He's running, but awkwardly and unevenly, the semi in his fatigues making it impossible for a smooth gait, and he finds himself behind the latrine, a hand over his mouth, and the realization that what he should have done was brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth out.

It's pretty bleak back there, but there's no one around, and Trapper shoves his hand into his pants, into his army issue underwear, and grabs his dick, almost strangling it in a miasma of misunderstood feelings, until he can clutch at himself with one hand, the other bracing him against the back of the latrine, and have what might be the most shameful yet arousing orgasm of his life.

What has Hawkeye done to him?

++

The next few days are an unspooled thread, nothing to do but lie around getting drunk or playing poker—or Solitaire, in Trapper's case—as there are no wounded, and no wounded expected. The dullness of it all is like a buzzing in Trapper's ears.

He avoids Hawkeye as much as he can, because every time he catches the slightest glimpse his cheeks flush and he remembers that moment behind the latrine, when his strength failed and he was so goddamn _weak_ , and he can't bear it.

Somehow, playing long games of Solitaire by himself in the empty post-op ward is preferable to anything else he can imagine, beyond having an unlimited supply of liquor. Because he's avoiding Hawkeye, he's been raiding Henry's liquor cabinet and sleeping in the VIP tent, and all in all it's a tearing way to live.

Mostly because it feels like something solid inside Trapper is being chipped at, piece by piece, until he's afraid it will come free of its moorings and wash away. What, Trapper isn't sure. Whether he's afraid it will wash away part of himself—part he doesn't acknowledge, doesn't want—or wash away the careful construction Trapper's kept there for years, he can't say.

Only that he's terrified of it.

And that Hawkeye reminds him of it.

But on the third day, an outbreak of illness in the camp confines all the healthy people to their tents and puts the patient who Henry thinks is patient zero in the VIP tent, and now, suddenly, he's faced with Hawkeye from nearly dawn to dusk. Frank is leaving on R&R, and he's already outside, catching his Jeep to Seoul, when Trapper awakens to sun slanting in through the mesh sides of the tent.

He rolls over, and Hawkeye is still sleeping, and without intending to, Trapper finds himself staring.

It's not like he's never noticed that Hawkeye is beautiful. The thick, shiny black hair combined with eyes that blue would have been striking even if he didn't have a unique, exotic facial structure that turns merely striking coloring into an abundantly beautiful face.

And since he kissed Hawkeye, he's felt ill himself, like he's feverish all the time. Like he belongs in the post-op ward with the sick. In fact, it'll be his shift with them later on in the day, just like it will be up to Hawkeye to relieve him even later after that.

He'd asked Henry why Frank got R&R when there were sick people—sick people from the 4077th—in post-op, and Henry had shrugged.

"He won't empty a bedpan and he won't change sheets, feels it's beneath him. So for the purposes of a stomach bug, he's essentially useless, and I'd rather send him to Seoul than listen to him complain."

It hadn't seemed fair to Trapper, but he hated Frank, and was glad to see him go anyway, even if it was for only two short days.

The problem was, it left him alone with two other people he hated: Hawkeye, and _himself_.

So now he's staring at Hawkeye sleeping peacefully in the other bunk, at his half-turned face, his lips red; his mussed, untidy hair; his long, long legs…

Trapper makes a noise of aborted disgust—imagine cataloguing the beauty of another man, and a homo at that!—and pulls the pillow over his face.

He can handle this. It's like any other illness; time enough and it will pass.

He _can_. And if Hawkeye suddenly seems both brutally beautiful and entirely too accessible, well, that will just have to _go_ , and Trapper will force it out.

He has to.

++

Trapper doesn't know what causes him to finally snap. He doesn't know if it's the forced proximity making him angry enough to try to _punish_ Hawkeye, or making him feel things he shouldn't feel—and wouldn't, if not for Hawkeye being a giant flamboyant fag in front of him all the time.

Regardless, they're in the supply tent together, sent there by Henry for gauze and bandages and 3-0 silk, and before Trapper can stop himself, before he can second-guess what he's doing, he's shoving Hawkeye up against a wall, his face mashed to the side of it, and his breath leaving him in a painful-sounding gasp.

By some miracle of Providence, the surgical jelly is stored on the shelf right in front of Hawkeye's startled blue eyes, which widen even more when Trapper plucks a tube off the shelf.

"Trap—" Hawkeye says, but Trapper jabs it into his hand.

"Drop your pants. Do... whatever, and do it fast." He doesn't even know what he's asking for. It's not like he's ever had homosexual sex before. He leans on Hawkeye a little, and Hawk isn't quite ready to give up and give in.

"What are you doing, Trap?" he asks, and his voice quavers a bit, not like his usual swaggering self-confidence at all. "Do you even know what you're asking for?"

"Shut up and do it!" Trapper does know what he's asking for: it's a bitter swelling in his throat, a taste foul in his mouth, but his cock _wants_ this, and he knows Hawkeye wants it too. Right?

Hawkeye manages to shrug his shoulders. "Alright," he says, some of the color coming back into his tone. "If it will help you, I'm game."

Trapper doesn't think this is going to _help_ , exactly, but he's wired and ready and—

Hawkeye undoes his belt, pushes down his fatigues and his underwear, and presses back against Trapper in a way that pushes his ass out and makes space for his fingers. They disappear between the cleft of his ass and move, slowly, back and forth.

After a couple minutes, Hawkeye shrugs. "If this is really what you want, I'm ready."

Trapper has a split second to question why he's so readily going along with this, and then he's got surgical jelly smoothed over his cock and he's pressing up and inward, breeching Hawkeye's defenses, slowly to start with, but then he finds his angle and rams upward.

Hawkeye grunts and Trapper feels something pulse inside him—pleasure or fury? he can't tell—but it ignites a fast, furious pace. And as he pumps into Hawkeye—tighter and hotter than he would have ever believed possible—he can feel the hard, rapid beat of his heart everywhere, even beneath his fingernails.

But his throat is still stuck closed with that phantom, aching swelling, and his breath won't come steady. Why does this feel so good? Why does it hurt so much?

What the fuck is _happening_ to him? Hawkeye was asking for this—he's been turning Trapper on for days, and he knows it. But what about Trapper? This shouldn't be something that _he's_ getting off on!

But his dick has never felt so snugly encased before as now, not when he's been with women. And Hawkeye's scent… something about the strong masculine notes are filling Trapper's nose and appealing to it more than any perfume ever has.

He can feel his hips slamming up and in, over and over, the slick, thick heat of Hawkeye's body clinging to his cock, as if willing it never to leave, and before he knows what's happening, he's coming.

Dimly he's aware that Hawkeye is saying something, pleading for something, but just as soon as the storm has come upon him, it's left him, shipwrecked and gasping, on a beach of the most disgusting shame he's ever felt.

He fucked a man—he liked it!—he should never have done this! He yanks free of Hawkeye's body and barely gets Big John tucked back into his pants before he's out the door, flying across the compound like he's trying to avoid a shelling, and it's not until he's puking his guts up uncontrollably in the latrine that he realizes two things.

One, Hawkeye probably didn't get off, a thought that fills him with something he can't put a name to, so he throws up some more. As he does, that phantom swelling in his esophagus seems to ease, leaving him free and clear to breathe and to puke.

And two, they never bothered to block the supply tent door.

Anyone could have walked in on them.

Trapper shudders, retches and heaves, and his heart is a silent, shriveled, cold little thing in his chest.

++

"How long has it been, Trap?" Hawkeye asks gently, holding a towel in one hand and a glass of water in the other. He doesn't wait for permission; he just wipes Trapper's mouth for him.

"H-how long?" Trapper's eyes feel gritty, and coming back to the Swamp was the _last_ thing he wanted to do, but here he is, figuring he owes Hawkeye something. If not a—well, that—at least an explanation. Maybe.

"Trap, I've known you for awhile now, and I can see how much you hate yourself. And when you learned who I am—who I _really_ am—your reaction said a lot. Don't tell me. Do you still not know?"

Trapper scrubs a hand down his face, turning away, unable to meet blue eyes that are filled with too much understanding. No, not understanding: _comprehension_. Hawkeye isn't being so forgiving because he's an understanding person.

He's being so forgiving because he _knows_. The thought makes Trapper hot and cold all at once. How could this have happened? Trapper hasn't… no, he wasn't even willing to think it of himself, not once in the last twenty years. But Hawkeye unravelled the knot on that particular unwanted present, the box he'd stored those feelings in, slammed closed, and tied up, ready for disposal.

Only he never managed to truly get rid of it; it's always been there, like a haunt, at the back of his mind.

"I can't do this—" Trapper tries to stand up, to get away, but Hawkeye presses both hands down on his thighs, holding him in place. Hawkeye's skinny arms are stronger than they look.

"Be honest with yourself," Hawkeye says, but Trapper's already shaking his head no.

"I can't," he blurts, then winces, knowing how it must sound: like an admission. Of guilt. Of deviance and perversion and the fact of his entire inner essence being _disgusting_.

"Then be gentle with yourself," Hawkeye murmurs, and there are hands, soft, surgeon's hands, in his hair, running through the curls.

"No, Hawk. I don't…"

"How _long_ have you liked men?" Hawkeye's voice is still soft, but ruthless now. "And tell me: do you actually like women, or are you just forcing yourself so that you can subsume the truest part of yourself, or at least, your sexuality?"

The words, put so baldly, make Trapper want to throw up again. He's never wanted so badly to deny something, to lie about it, to hurl it away from himself like a box full of snakes.

"I won't tell anyone, Trap. But I'd like to know where I stand. You were willing—however much against your better judgment, however reluctantly—to fuck me. Is it me? Of course I'll be flattered; a man can never have too much adoration. But somehow I don't think so, at the great, terribly cruel cost to my ego."

The joking is light, not as thick as Hawkeye would usually lay it on, and not at his expense. Maybe that's what does it. Maybe it's the complete lack of judgment in Hawkeye's tone; maybe it's the fact that he's joking with Trapper like they never had those horrible days where he said and did horrible things—Hawkeye's eye is still swollen and black; maybe it's just exhaustion—maybe it's all of those things—but Trapper's eyes sting. They sting, and before he can stop it, they fill.

Trapper doesn't _cry_. Not very often, at any rate. He's teared up a little at his daughters' letters. He's cried once or twice over the sheer injustice of being a million miles from home, stuck in Korea at the army's irrefusable invitation. But—

But nothing like _this_ , because once it happens, it's like the glue that has been holding him together since puberty has melted away, leaving him naught more than a sniveling, bawling, wet mess.

And Hawkeye doesn't say anything, not at first. He doesn't touch Trapper—maybe he knows Trapper couldn't bear it—but he sits solidly in front of him, blotting Trapper out from the open tent flaps and he starts singing, loudly, obstructing the sound of his sobs. Trapper's so goddamn grateful he wants to die—not because of embarrassment, but because of _guilt_.

"I-I'm sorry, Hawk," he splutters wetly, "I-I was awful to ya, and I can never make it uo to ya and it was inexcusable—but I'm still sorry."

"It's alright for now," Hawkeye says. "I'll think of some way to take my pound of flesh. But for now just… breathe."

"It's unforgivable, what I did. I hurt…" Trapper's tears are slowing, but the sobs aren't; they're just becoming dry and painful to his ribs and lungs. He finally looks up into those beautiful, those heartbreakingly lovely, blue eyes and touches the swollen one so gently it's nothing more than the caress of a butterfly's wing. "I did that."

"Yes. You did." No snarky comment. No absolution. Just confirmation. Trapper's heart breaks. He can _hear_ it break.

"Ya oughta punch me back," he says, choking back the last of his self-pity, his dissolution. He clambers to his feet, swaying slightly, and puts his hands behind his back.

"No." Hawkeye stands too. "That's not a proper punishment. It isn't fair value. I'd like—no. The way you can atone for my eye is a kiss, freely and willingly given. And if you can't give it now, I'll wait. But I think you'll find that your heart is just as strong as your fists."

Trapper stares at him, unable to blink the sunspots of shock out of his eyes.

"But—but I hit ya. An' I can' kiss ya, Hawk. It isn't in me."

"You already did. Don't you remember? Ah, for me it was true love's kiss—I thought for sure you felt the same!"

Trapper thinks bleakly back on how he'd shoved Hawkeye hard enough to knock him over. "Maybe ya just think that because I clobbered ya," he suggests. "Ya might have a head injury."

His equilibrium is returning if he can joke about that. Fuck. What does that mean? He was a mess of tears and snot a minute ago and… and _now_ what?

"It's the sweetest concussion I've ever had," Hawkeye says, giving him a sardonic smile. "Remember, Trap: I'll be waiting."

Trapper's not sure he'll ever be on the same page as Hawkeye. You don't loathe who you are for your whole life just to give it all up during one crying jag.

But maybe Hawkeye _is_ right. Maybe someday Trapper will be ready.

And Hawkeye will be waiting.

For now, that's enough.

**Author's Note:**

> If it seems like there are loose ends, there are. If I don't fail spectacularly, there will be a sequel. ...and the sequel is begun, but redeeming Trapper seems like a monolithic task, so I've been working on it very slowly and sporadically.


End file.
